WastelandRogue (24 page)

“And you went along with this?” Rye said. “Sevrin, I’m for
leaving them here anyway.”

“That sounds good. We’re going to do what we need to do and
leave these two to their own accord.”

The man on the table slowly regained consciousness. He had a
goofy, infatuated smile he aimed at the technician, an aftereffect of the
bloodletting. Rye recognized that euphoric high that captivated all your senses
and thrust you into searching for the cause—looking to keep the sensation
going.

She glanced at Sevrin from the corner of her eye. Sadly, a
blood transference created lust, not real love. She loved her sister and would
do anything to help or protect her. Were her feelings for Sevrin as strong?

The technician Zandt held fought letting Shay stick a needle
in his arm. Sevrin tied his man to the chair and nodded for Rye to watch him
while he walked around the table with the other
lamian
.

“Your friend is cooperating.” Sevrin pulled his gun from the
holster on his back. “We really don’t need you.”

The man quickly understood his position and stopped
struggling. “You’ll never get out of here.”

“You better hope we do and soon,” Zandt said, poking the
needle into his arm. “Nothing stops the sterilization procedure.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Dr. Renault,” Dr.
Creswell said as he suddenly entered the lab.

They had gotten so busy with hooking up the technicians for
blood transfusions to the
lamians
that no one had guarded the room.

Sevrin spun around, turning his gun on Creswell. He hadn’t
liked the small man the first time they met, when Creswell locked them in a
room to await Zandt.

“Is it true you’ve been experimenting on
lamians
to
find a way to eradicate them from earth?” Zandt asked.

“Very true, Dr. Renault.”

“Why? What’s to gain?”

“Human superiority. Nature offers man many things. Our
intelligence is the key to what to accept and what to discard. Why not prevent
the extinction of the human race?”

“Humans can’t even reproduce,” Rye challenged heatedly.
“Their extinction is inevitable.”

Sevrin noticed Creswell’s smug look and his gaze at Zandt.
His brother hadn’t told them something. In that second, Rye’s distrust of Zandt
wormed its way into Sevrin’s thoughts.

“Zandt?” Sevrin asked. “Humans can’t reproduce, can they?”

“One of the other areas I’ve been working is human reproduction,”
he confessed.

“You’re helping him destroy
lamians
?” Shay exclaimed,
her eyes wide with disbelief.

“I was helping humankind,” Zandt corrected. “One has nothing
to do with the other. I had no idea that wiping out
lamians
was their
plan.”

“And now that you know?” Rye asked.

“I’ll be rethinking all areas of my research.”

“It won’t matter,” Creswell said. “We have all your notes,
all your tests and all of your conclusions. Besides, why would you not want to
do something to help yourself?”

Sevrin laughed and looked at his brother. Zandt was always
better at hiding his heritage than he was. It was hard to believe that a
company as big on security as the Wickstrom Group wouldn’t have had Zandt
thoroughly investigated.

“He doesn’t know?” Sevrin asked.

“Know what?” Creswell eyed him.

Rye obviously knew what he was talking about. She came
forward first, showing little fear of the man. “Dr. Renault is part
lamian
,
like Sevrin, Shay and me.”

“And you don’t think I knew that about him?” Creswell gave a
short chuckle and grinned, wickedly amused at them. “We’re very thorough in our
background checks. We’ve always known about him and the rest of his family.”

“You questioned why he’d not want to help himself,” Sevrin
said.

“He took on your father’s work. Or I should say, your
father’s and his colleague’s. I wouldn’t wish to discount the genius of Dr.
Mariah Sanborn.”

Both Rye and Shay let out a small gasp.

“Mariah had a brilliant mind. She and the elder Dr. Renault
worked together to develop an agent that would reverse the gene causing
sterility. First they had to create a laboratory-controlled bacterium that
could act as the carrier. Unfortunately for Mariah and Dr. Sanborn, there was
an accident with the bacteria. My fault, really. It seemed the best solution to
gain ground on its development. The results were inevitable for a final
conclusion. Both doctors and a number of their assistants were infected.”

“Zandt, did you know about this?” Sevrin asked.

“Yes.”

“And you kept working here?”

“I though it was an accident, Sevrin, not an intentional act
of malice on Dr. Creswell’s part. I’ve worked with the bacteria and it’s what
has helped me—” Zandt stopped midsentence.

“Helped you what?” Sevrin demanded.

“As you’re probably aware, Renault,” Creswell addressed
Sevrin, “
lamians
with dominant human genes, though rare, are also
sterile. What he was working on would make it possible for him and you to have
children one day. He has actually succeeded.”

Sevrin follow Creswell’s gaze from Shay to Rye.

An infuriated sound seethed from Rye.

“That’s right, your sister is carrying Dr. Renault’s child.”
Creswell sneered.

Rye lunged at Zandt. “You raped my sister!”

“No.” Zandt denied this, holding his hands out to stop Rye
from attacking him. “I’ve never seen your sister before now.”

Sevrin grabbed Rye around the waist to stop her.

“What’s going on, Creswell?” Sevrin asked.

“Dr. Renault isn’t lying,” Creswell stated. “He had no idea
that during his routine physical, one of his inoculations was in fact the
bacteria, or that a sample of his sperm was used to artificially inseminate the
half-
lamian
female.”

“You evil, villainous man,” Rye growled. “We’re going to
destroy this place and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.”

“I don’t know about that. Besides, this is one of many
facilities under the control of the Wickstrom Group,” Creswell stated.

“Then we’ll have to go to the source, won’t we?” Zandt
challenged.

“No one really knows where the Wickstrom Group is located.”
Creswell grinned.

“I have a good idea.”

“No, you just want to believe they are in the easiest place
you know the location of. Reality is, they can be found in a multitude of
places around the world.”

“I’ll find them…all of them,” Zandt exclaimed.

“Do you think it wise to go against us? You are a scientist.
A thinker, an observer, a man dedicated to improving the future. The Wickstrom
Group is in control of world development. If you don’t work for them, then
you’re on the outside looking in. You’ll have no place in our new society.”

“Zandt doesn’t need you,” Shay declared in a protective
tone. “You may have all the equipment and the resources to carry out your plans
but as you said, Zandt is the thinker. He’s the man with the intellect and the
expertise. It’s you that can’t do without him.”

Zandt stepped forward. “You want to kill people, Dr.
Creswell.”

“Our aim is on the future, Dr. Renault. We don’t want to
start a war, humans against
lamians
. Our goal is to weaken the
lamian
breed. Make their females infertile and their males sterile. They’ll die out
over time.”

“Then why use my research to impregnate this half
lamian
?
It can only result in a stronger specimen of both breeds. Doesn’t that go
against what you’re trying to do?”

“Yes. But as scientists, we always need to work to destroy
it.”

Both Rye and her sister hissed a sound of anger.

Zandt turned to Sevrin. “We’ve got to get going. Time is
limited.”

Sevrin nodded and motioned with his gun for Creswell to move
over near the table and the tied up technician.

“You and Shay go. The two
lamians
will be strong
enough soon and then Creswell and his two technicians can lead us out of here,”
Sevrin told his brother.

“Be careful,” Zandt said, leaving the room with Shay.

“Do you honestly think I don’t know about the explosives
they’ve set?” Creswell said, after Zandt and Shay were gone. “No one pisses in
my facility without me knowing, Renault. Your brother and his cohorts have been
under surveillance for some time now.”

Sevrin ran for the doorway to stop his brother from walking
into the trap Creswell had obviously hinted at setting. He turned at the
doorway and looked back at Rye.

One of the
lamians
pushed Rye and said, “Go. We’ve
recovered very well, thank you.”

Rye walked halfway to Sevrin. She looked back at the
lamians
.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

Both nodded. Sevrin felt her reluctance to leave but he knew
she’d come with him. Her sister was in danger again. She’d even leave him to
protect Shay.

“You think by destroying this facility, you can stop the
Wickstrom Group? This place is only one of hundreds of outsource
subcontractors,” Creswell declared.

“So where are the high-level overseers of the Wickstrom
Group? In hiding?”

“I don’t know where they are,” Creswell said calmly.

“But you have a guess, don’t you?”

“No.”

“Come on, Creswell. Isn’t that what science is all about?
Hypothesizing.”

“It’s not my business to know that information. However, if
I were to guess, they’d be somewhere not easily accessible, not accidentally
stumbled upon, impenetrable by whomever they deem their enemies.
Lamians
will never win this silent war between the species.”

“Sevrin, we need to get going.” Rye plucked at his sleeve.

“You’re right. No telling what Zandt and Shay are walking
into.” He pulled her out if the room.

“We don’t know which way they went,” she said in the
corridor.

“If it were me, I’d place the explosives somewhere centrally
located where it would do the most damage.” He rushed to the stairwell door
where he’d seen a corridor map.

“I’d think that would be here, in the lowest level.” She
tapped the diagram of the floor they were on.

“No. Zandt said it would take some time to get to.” He
studied the layout.

“But taking out the legs of anyone or anything would cripple
a structure,” she argued.

“Unless it has been reinforced.” He touched the walls. “Have
you noticed how everywhere we’ve been, the walls are thick, impenetrable behind
their façades?”

“Then there is no weakness to the building.”

“Oh, I think there is. They might have strengthened the
foundation and reinforced the perimeter but the core of anything is always
vulnerable. Everything we’ve seen is a deterrent against entry to the heart of
their operations.”

“Where is that?” Rye moved closer to the map. “We came down
here from here.” She pointed.

“Remember we opened a door and it was a closet?”

“You think there was a secret door in there?”

“We searched a whole floor and found nothing but small empty
rooms. Even after they took us to that room to wait for Zandt, we passed a
similar layout with no indications of labs. There has to be a secret door. The
closet would be the least likely area anyone would look for one.”

“Then let’s go.” Rye went first, running for the staircase.

The door that they had previously needed a key card to get
through was ajar.

“So far, we’re headed the right way.” He picked up his
brother’s lab coat, which was wedging the door open.

“How did he know we’d follow him?”

“Maybe he did it for us to get out without needing
Creswell.”

They headed up the staircase and then another and yet
another, finding each door propped open. He considered shutting them but unlike
Creswell and the other employees, they didn’t have key cards. If he and Rye had
to come back this way they’d be stuck. So he left the objects in the doorways.

“I hope you’re right.” Rye put her fingers in the recessed
handle of the door and slid it open.

“Well?” He moved around her and went inside the small space.

She searched one side while he searched the shelf unit on
the opposite side.

“I don’t see where any of these shelves slide, swing or
move. Every one of them is fastened in place.”

“Something has to give.” He tugged, yanked and banged on
everything. “This is the most logical place for a secret door to be.”

“We’re wasting time here, Sevrin.”

He ran his hand along the wall, pushed the panels, hoping
one popped open. Nothing happened. “I guess you’re right. We’ll have to look
somewhere else.”

He stepped out of the closet first. Then a whirr of sound
spun him back around and he dove into the confined space of the small room as
the door slid shut.

“What did you do?” he asked, holding Rye by the arms while
looking around at the vibrating walls and floor.

“Apparently, that button on that dome thing with the light
inside isn’t for turning the light off,” she said, nodding toward the fixture
shoulder-high alongside the door.

“How ingenious, the whole room moves. It’s an archaic
elevator.” He kissed her. “And you figured it out.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say I figured it out. Are we really
moving?” She looked down. “Have you seen something like this before?”

“Yes, we are moving and no, I’ve never seen a real elevator.
My father knew a lot about history. Zandt and I spent our youth listening to my
father’s stories about all sorts of ancient contraptions and unique items.
Elevators, airplanes, ice cream and hundreds of other items laced his tales of
the olden days.”

“Ice cream?” Rye stared at him with fascination.

Someday he hoped to tell her all the stories his father had
passed down to them from their ancestors, as well as the stories about the
amazing contraptions he had seen firsthand in his travels. “It was an icy-cold
treat from hundreds of years ago that you eat.”

“I don’t eat.”

“You should try it. You might find you like taste of…you can
taste things, can’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, think of eating something for the enjoyment of your senses
sometime, instead of a necessity to sustain life. And I don’t mean blood,” he
added when she smiled.

The room stopped. They faced a new corridor, clean and shiny
polished metal and glass walls. Lights glowed as bright as sunlight. The heart
of the research facility was before them.

They walked slowly along and looked into the see-through
labs.

“Where do you think we should look first?” Rye jumped at the
sound of an alarm.